


It's Been a Long, Long Time

by kaiju_royalty



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Attempt at humor anyway, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain Grampa Frisbee, Dancing, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Everyone basically - Freeform, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Feel-good, Fluff, Happy, Humor, I'm trying, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Snarky Bucky, Snarky Steve, So much sass it burns lesser lifeforms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:47:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2463884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaiju_royalty/pseuds/kaiju_royalty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the span of a hundred years, so many things change. But for two bright eyed boys from Brooklyn, some things always remain the same.<br/>Stories for after the war, after the tundras, after the longest Winter of all.</p>
<p>(A bunch of (mainly) out of order drabbles, mostly fluff and sappy romance. May or may not eventually turn into a proper story. Who knows not me.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Way It Was

It’s 5am, and Steve has effectively been pacing the wood floor of his apartment for ten hours now. It might be the fatigue talking, but he’s pretty sure by now there’s a groove from the door to the window to the lounge, distinctly the size of his feet. He’s about to give in (for the twentieth time), phone in hand, Sam on speed dial, when the lock on the door clicks itself open, and the dark shadow of what he can only assume to be a delinquent Bucky slinks through.  
Steve clears his throat, suddenly feeling the ninety odd years tacked onto his age, and places his hands on his hips.  
“What?”  
“Don’t you ‘what’ me, Bucky! You know you’re on probation! It took long enough to convince everyone to let you stay here with me, and there was only one condition; you don’t leave the apartment without me. Only one condition, Buck, was it really that hard?”  
Steve doesn’t even need the lights on to know James is rolling his eyes. He can feel it. That son of a bitch.  
“C’mon, Steve, I wasn’t out alone. Tasha needed me.”  
“It’s the middle of the night!”  
“It was really important.”  
“Oh, really.”  
“Yeah, really.”  
Seeing as Bucky seems to have no intention of stopping any time soon, Steve sidesteps, directly into the other mans chosen path, and Bucky stops. Heaves a sigh like he’s mother god damn Mary and does everyone see the kind of turmoil he is lumbered with here.  
“What then. Do tell, Buck.”  
“She and I had to go through all your official records and change the name from Captain America to Captain Grandpa Frisbee.” Bucky explains, voice dragging on each syllable, like it’s as clear as the sky is blue. Steve, is silent for a fair moment, blinking incredulously into the dark space between their two faces.  
“Why?!”  
“Do you know what Frisbees are, Stevie?” Bucky continues. “Neither did I. Once we finished up Tash took me to the park, they’re actually pretty fucking great. They’ve got this thing now called ultimate Frisbee which I think we’d be kick ass at and-“ A hand directed to the centre of his face cuts off the potential rant mid pace.  
“Bucky. I know what Frisbees are. What I don’t know is why you felt it necessary to disappear without a trace to play ultimate Frisbee in the park at four in the morning and mess around with my files.”  
“You said I should do anything that helps me out.”  
Admittedly, that silenced the blonde for a second; head cocked. “This helps you?”  
“Yes.”  
“Really?”  
James clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in contemplation. “No, not really.”  
“Then why, Buck.” Somewhere along the way, the words tumbled together in the walls of Steve’s lungs and struggled their way out under the weight of an escaping sigh.  
“Because it’s really, really, funny.” Bucky concedes, the dim glow of the street light across from them refracting across his growing grin.  
Steve retreats his face to the sanctuary between his palms, unsure what else to do with them. As they stood almost a century ago, he would’ve simply called Bucky something along the lines of ‘little shit’ or slapped him round the ear. But now, he just wasn’t sure what move to make. Admittedly, they’d never been in this situation before, give or take all the years there was between them.  
“Aw, c’mon, Rogers.” Bucky rocks forward, knocking their shoulders together, the shared weight effectively shaking Steve out of whatever stress-induced aneurysm he’d seemingly retreated too. “You know it’s pretty hilarious.”  
“Bucky.”

“Like that time me and the guys tied that bit of rope between you and your shield? Remember? I know I sure as hell do. We forgot to tell you before we got sprung and you ended up throwing the damn thing so hard it pulled your stupid ass right along with it. Right through Mortias tent and everything. You remember, Steve?”  
“Bucky.”  
“Or that time back in Brooklyn I set you up with that one dame, what was her name?”  
“Bucky, just-“  
“Her name don’t matter, you’re right. What matters is that she was a whole three foot taller than you-“  
“She wasn’t *that* much taller.”  
“-And at the end of the night she ended up so plastered you had to take her up the stairs. Remember? Five whole flights.”  
“I remember.”  
“And when we got up to the door she told you you weren’t a real gentleman till you kissed her goodbye. And you puckered your little self up and leant in all tender like-“  
“Bucky.” It was a warning voice, now.  
“-And she lost it. Collapsed right on top of you, dead asleep. I could hear you screaming from the street. You even brought out her neighbour, gun in hand, on account of he thought it was a lady screaming out, since you were so high pitched. And then we-“  
“Buck, just quit it, alright?” Steve regretted the snap the instant it came, and was already composing a full ten page apology essay internally. He didn’t like to discourage Bucky from remembering anything, as embarrassing as he might find the memories. Bucky, however, looks the antithesis of discouraged.  
“That’s right!”  
“What’s right?”  
“You tellin’ me to quit at it. Like you used to all the time. I lost track of a lot lately but I didn’t let that slip. And I sure as hell didn’t let you lookin’ at me like you’re walking on eggshells slip, neither.” Bucky wasn’t smiling anymore. His mouth was set in rigor mortis tight frown lines. And God, was that just him. Before anything, before the War, Bucky never half assed a thing, and that included his face. When he smiled he lit up like Times Square mid December.  
“That’s not what it’s about and you know it, Buck. That’s not what I meant.”  
“Shucks, Stevie, I know it ain’t, but that’s how it’s coming out.”  
Silence yawned between them, swallowing up even the distant sounds of wayward traffic and tires of tar below. The two men remained like this for a while, quiet itching at the back of their necks like rash. Bucky watches the floorboards. Steve watches Bucky. His overgrown hair had been wrestled back into a questionable updo, presumably Natasha’s work. Presumably against Bucky’s will. A few renegade hairs had escaped, planning their getaway in knots and tresses along the hard lines of his face.

“You’re a punk.” Steve breaks first. He always breaks first, when it comes to him.  
“What?”  
“I said, you’re a low down, cheap little punk, Buck.”  
And with those words, the December across the other mans’ face bursts into full-blown Christmas eve, his smile so wide it sends ripples up around his eyes. Steve reaches a hand up, and slowly, so slowly, brushes the loose hair back. After all, it’d been almost eighty years.  
He wasn’t planning on missing another chance at Christmas.  
“Oh yeah? Well you know what you are?”  
“What am I?”  
“You’re a jerk.”  
Steve steps forward, the minute distance between them unbearable now. One hand remains pressed against the dark hair on the back of his head. He didn’t pull him close, not yet. As much as Bucky liked to protest, the waters they tread were still dark and storm ridden and cold underneath. So Steve simply waits, hovering close by, leaving the decision up to him.  
And like a tide rolling into shore, Bucky steps forward, bowing his head against the Captains shoulder. Steve reciprocated with an arm around his waist, head pressed against his ear.  
“I miss it the way it used to be, Stevie. Just like this.”  
“I know, Buck. So do I.”  
“Riling up your dumb behind always was too easy, though.”


	2. Dear Bucky,

“What the hell are all these?” Bucky’s yelling even before he’s halfway through the entrance to the gym, left arm waving in the air, bundles of paper clenched between his polished chrome fingers. He is a tsunami, hushed whispers and frightened Stark interns scattering in his wake. By the time he’s stomped all the way to where Steve is working the punching bag, the entire place is almost desolate, save for the few more long term employees brave enough to face the aftershock of a true Barnes-esque tantrum.  
“And good afternoon to you too, Buck.” As much as he’s been trying not to credit the behaviour, Bucky’s apparently having none of it. The papers wadded in his hand get shoved directly in Steve’s face, half of them scattering across the floor in the gesture.  
“I said, what in the hell are these?” Barnes repeats. His scowl, as ever, is the stuff of legend. Steve might consider it almost comical if he wasn’t apparently mid-interrogation. He lowers his hands, attempting to juggle the literal mountains of paperwork amidst the boxing tape constricting his fingers.  
“Uh, papers? Maybe, letters it looks like? I think I know about as much of them as you do.”  
“Don’t you bullshit me, Rogers.”  
“What!”  
“They’re letters, I found them! All in that box of stuff you keep squirrelled away, from the Smithsonian.”  
“What. Do you. I’m not ‘squirrelling’ anything away!”  
“Then explain what these where doing inside the airduct above our apartment, huh?”  
“Explain what YOU where doing inside the airduct above our apartment?”  
Bucky freezes. Looks down at his feet, twists his mouth. Looks back up at Steve.  
“That’s not important right now.”  
“That’s very important right now!”  
“Just tell me why! Why didn’t you tell me about these?” With the deepest sigh he can muster, Steve decides it’s probably time to try and actually read what’s being repeatedly shoved in his face.

About a month after he’d come out of the ice, the Smithsonian had officially announced that the small exhibit they held on him would be expanded, and immediately started digging deeper than ever before into the ‘glorious past of Captain America’. Steve had found, much to his dismay, that he and Bucky’s old apartment in Brooklyn, as well as many other places they frequented, had been ransacked after his disappearance in the name of preserving history. Once he had shown up alive after all, it’d caused quite the controversy within the museums, apparently, in what was owed to him and what was owed history. What he ended up with was a mix match box of odds and ends that were either deemed unimportant or inappropriate for display. A lot of his sketch books found their way back to him, mostly on the terms that they were essentially dominated with pencilled drawings of Bucky. Bucky asleep on the couch. Bucky perched, smoking, on the rickety fire escape outside their building. Bucky in the very watercolours that he’d scraped for months to afford for Steve for his birthday, eyes as blue as robins eggs.

Still thinking him lost, Steve could hardly stand to glance at that particular boulevard of memory lane, so he’d left the box, and not thought much of it, until now.  
Until he remembered the letters.  
“Oh no.” Steve sinks down to a cross legged sit, the taped and retaped punching bag above him still swaying idly from past impacts, and he flicks through the crumpled, decade old papers in front of him.

‘Bucky,  
That old radiator in the bedroom’s gone and broke itself again. I know you’re busy, but I just wish you’d find a way home so you could fix it, because I haven’t the foggiest. I tried to jump the thing into action by kicking it but I think all I jumped was my toes. I know what you’re gonna say so don’t bother – they’re not broken and I’m fine. I’m fine, I promise, so you don’t need to worry about me. Worry about not doing anything too stupid till I can make it over there! The county checkup a few towns over just barely denied me the other day, so I know I’m getting close. We’ll just have to see-‘

‘Steve,  
It’s so cold over here, by God, I’ve seen more men lost to it then the fighting we’re supposed to be over here for. I don’t care what you say, you don’t belong here, listen to me now and promise me you’ll stay where it’s warm. I’d give my left arm to be there back with you, believe me.  
I asked corporal what I could right say in a letter and he flat out said to keep my big trap shut. So as much as I know you wanna hear it: I can’t tell you where I am, or where I’m going, and it’s not important, I guess. All the other fellas here only write home to their sweethearts, or wives. Tellin’ them what they’re up to and how much they’re missing them and all that bullhonkey. Dum Dum asked the other day how sweet I musta been on my girl on account of I’m writing her every damn minute we get. (I told you you’d make a damn fine dame for someone one day, didn’t I, Rogers?)  
Shame you ain’t my girl, isn’t it.  
I told him it was a broad named Monica, I hope that’s okay.  
I’ve seen men get sent packing for less.  
I’ve seen men killed for less, Steve.’

‘Steve,  
Say what you want about Nazi sons of bitches, they know how to make a fine wine. We ransacked one of their hideaways earlier this afternoon. Packed to the rafters of old as dust oil paintings and tapestry and gold and jems. Like we used to read about in those old adventure novels, huh?  
Funny thing is, all these riches and gold and I can’t help but think of when we were kids and we had to live off what we nicked offa that nasty old grocer down the street, and over here they’ve just got fuckin warehouses stuffed full of anything you can imagine. It’s not fair, is it?  
Life ain’t fair, Steve, more I’m here more I realize that. I know you don’t believe me when I say it but you don’t know what people can really get up too once the lights are out. So help me God I don’t ever want you to have to know, don’t seem right.  
That’s how I think of it, anyway. Makes all this hell seem a little more worth it, just knowing you don’t have to see none of it.”

‘Bucky,  
I don’t know if these are reaching you properly, but if they are, please write back. I know I used to say sleeping with you was like sleeping with the worst kind of leech but you know I didn’t mean any of it, didn’t you? Before we could hardly fit, but now our bed just seems so so small without you.’

‘Bucky,  
Don’t worry about me anymore, I can’t tell you any specifics, but just know, I’m on my way. I finally found it. This could be my chance, Buck, my big break, and I just know, I can feel that things are going to start getting better.’

 

Nearly all of the letters are rendered illegible, now. Half of Steve’s correspondence is splattered with flecks of mud and blood and folded a million which ways. It’s obvious that Bucky had had them on his person for a decent time during the war. Of course, the correspondence stopped as soon as Steve left Manhattan, save for a few notes and little snippets he remembers exchanging underneath tables and across fires. Silent words in a world full of deafening sound. They were probably all lost, though. Lost when they both fell. And regardless, Steve can’t bring himself to read another.  
He doesn’t know if Bucky has, though, so he doesn’t look up. Just leans his face down into his hands.  
“Bucky, I’m so sorry. Trust me, I didn’t know these were in there. I would’ve. Would’ve told you sooner, or anything, really. I didn’t want you to find out like this. I didn’t want to push things.“  
“Steve, look at me straight, here.” Bucky bobs down, a few of the stray papers skittering away across the floor underneath him. His voice is empty, monotone. Detached. Steve’s only heard him shut down like this a few times before, and it was the exact thing he was so terrified telling him would cause. But he does right, and lifts his head from his hands. Meets Bucky’s gaze dead on, the ex-assassins jaw is locked, his entire face stretched just a little too far.  
“What were we?”  
“I don’t honestly know how to explain it. We- I. I never wanted to put a label on it, I suppose. It was too risky, especially once you got enlisted.  
“What were we.”  
Steve goes quiet for a moment, loses Bucky’s eyes in exchange for the notes in his hands.

What were they?  
They were best friends. They’d known each other since they were five years old, and Steve had been knocked into the dust, wind gone from his lungs, blood across his face. And Bucky, everyone was almost as scared of him as they were now, went howling up to the older boys. The ones looming over Steve. Fists flying and teeth bared like a wild animal. He’d barely missed a step between a sprinting and slamming his forehead directly into the nose of the ringleader. And once they were gone, he’d turned, knuckles busted, gap toothed smile wide, sun in his hair and across his skin, and offered Steve his hand.  
And they’d been completely inseparable since.  
When there was nothing left for them, there was always each other.  
Bucky had been, since Steve could form coherent sentences, his entire world.  
And when they were fifteen Bucky had snuck the first bottle of hard liquor he could snatch from his dads’ cabinet and they’d both gotten drunk together. And Steve, in all his drunken, teenage splendour, had found his way into Barnes’ lap.  
And when they were fifteen Steve got his first kiss from his best friend in the universe.  
For many years after that there’d been countless times when they’d gotten drunk. The reality was easier to face without a belly full of scotch.  
The reality that Steve loved Bucky, and that by all accounts, Bucky loved him right back.

“I. I think we were in love, Bucky.” Steve Rogers had never felt so small as he did under the weight of that confession, one hundred years in the making. They were, and he had been, terribly, irrevocably in love.  
The punching bag overhead had gone completely still, the gym empty now save for them.  
“Love?” Bucky echoes.  
“Yeah. Yeah, we were.”  
“Are you still.” His voice is empty enough to prompt Steve to look up. Bucky is, of course, still watching him. Eyes slightly narrowed, looking at him as if he’s the most complicated equation to ever meander it’s way across the path of James Goddamn Buchannan Barnes.  
“It’s not important how I feel, I’m not going to pressure you into anything, especially not this. Banner warned me some things might not come out the same way, and I’m not going to breach-“  
“Cut the crap, Rogers. I ain’t your damn therapist.” Barnes snaps, “I get to decide how I feel about stuff, that’s the deal, and it’s the same deal for you. I remember. I remember now, some parts of it. Of. Whatever you say we had.”  
“I never said we had anything, I told you, I don’t know what to say. We never called it anything!”  
“I remember. You said.” Bucky takes a breath, grey eyes clouding over. “You said…”  
He leans back, falling out of a crouch into a sit with a heavy ‘thwump’ on the ground, knees brushing against Steve’s. The hard lines in his face have dissipated, now, replaced with one single curve of a melancholic frown. Or, as melancholic as Bucky can get. His memories still come in flashes, little glimpses of lightning on the horizon of a drenched black storm front. Tastes, movement, colours, feelings.  
“Are you still, Steve? You gotta tell me.”  
“Bucky.”  
“Please. Stevie.”  
The petname ‘Stevie’ means one of three things. Either Bucky has done something transgressive which he finds both hilarious and adorable, or he is desperately trying to get his own way, or he is genuinely very emotional. In this situation, it doesn’t appear to be any of the first two. And he’s right, he does deserve the truth, he definitely didn’t deserve to dig it up from some lost corner of the ventilation system.  
Steve owes him the world.  
“Yes. I still am, Buck. Always will be.” The second the words are out of Steve’s mouth Bucky’s face crumples, calligraphy fine tears etching their way down from his usually dim steel eyes. Steve reaches out, taking both Barnes’ hands in his, holding him tight, for all the times he couldn’t.  
“I didn’t say it back then and I’m so, so sorry. But I did, and I do. No matter where you want to go from here, I’ll always love you. I’m with you, Buck. Till the end of our line.” If Steve’s crying, too, then for once Bucky has the decency not to tease the living daylights out of him for it. Instead, he seems to be content to lean in, eyes locked with Steve’s till the very last second, and presses their lips together.

When Steve was younger, every birthday Bucky would walk him to the top of the biggest hill they could find, and keep him out long enough to see the Fourth of July fireworks. ‘Look at ‘em, Steve. They’re all for you. The whole towns come out just to try and catch a glimpse of ya.’ He’d promise just that, the same thing each year over. And each year, he'd carry Steve back down the hill when they were done, to deliver him home. This moment was every firework, every bright ray of light and shimmering colour against the dark, black sky overhead.

They’d had a lot of time stolen from their clocks over the years, and Bucky was determined not to let another second go. He wasn’t sure of a lot of things anymore, but he was certain of Steve. Before he knew himself, he knew Steve, and he knew what was right.  
Bucky untangles their hands long enough to replace them against his Captains waist, and Steve’s find their way up to knot into Barnes’ hair, pulling him impossibly closer. After seventy years, he was damn sure he wasn’t ready to let him go again anytime soon.


End file.
